The art of binding pages together has evolved from the days of the Roman codex, to the present, when we have binding techniques ranging from hand sewn bindings, machine sewn bindings, the perfect or glued binding, spiral loose-leaf ring bindings, and plastic loose-leaf ring bindings to a simple stapled binding. Sewn bindings, and to a lesser extent the perfect binding are valued for their permanence, although the pages will not lie flat and the binding requires such tools and skills that it is practical only on a commercial basis. The spiral and plastic ring binding allows the pages to lie perfectly flat and requires relatively little skill, but to work the rings or spiral must be round and hence these bindings are vulnerable to crushing which either breaks or bends them rendering them unusable, and furthermore such bindings require a substantial amount of equipment. Stapled bindings, of course, are most difficult to manipulate, the least permanent of all bindings, and the simplest and least expensive.
Thus, after two millennia the need still remained for a binding that would allow the pages to lie flat and require little skill, like the spiral or ring binder, and that would be permanent, invulnerable to crushing, and would lie flat in a mailing container like the sewn and perfect bindings. And as important as all of those features are, such a binding would also need to be capable of binding of any number of pages together, like the sewn or perfect bindings and require as little special equipment, training or skills as a stapled binding, so that it could be made on either a do-it-yourself, or a commercial basis, or on a single or a mass produced basis. It is the object of the present invention to provide such a binding capable of achieving all of those objectives.